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TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly is a peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to transgender studies, with an emphasis on cultural studies and the humanities. It is the first non-medical journal in this area. '''It is published quarterly by the Duke University Press. The first issue was published May 1, 2014, and it is still in publication today. As of December 2018, the most recent issue, published November 1, 2018, is entitled “Trans*historicities.”'''

The founding editors-in-chief are Susan Stryker (University of Arizona) and Paisley Currah (Brooklyn College and Graduate Center, CUNY).

In an interview about the journal, Stryker stated that she felt she had been working on the first issue since the 1990s.   Stryker and Currah were alerted to the more immediate need for such a journal in 2008, when they co-edited a special transgender studies issue of Women's Studies Quarterly. They needed 12 articles but received more than 200 submissions. In May 2013, they started a month-long Kickstarter campaign to help fund the journal. They received more than US$10,000 in donations in the first five days; by the end of the campaign, the journal had nearly US$25,000 in crowdfunded capital.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

Prior to the beginnings of transgender studies, most work on transgender issues was done from a medical lens, rather than from the transgender individual’s point of view.   This medical lens often portrayed the transgender individual as experiencing “gender identity disorder” or other mental illnesses or disorders. '''  This positioning of expertise on the subject made medical professionals the experts on transgender issues, including authority over who is or is not trans. Transgender studies publications, including TSQ, serve to put authority in the hands of transgender people and their allies, rather than medical professionals. In the introduction to their first issue, Currah and Stryker state that they intend for TSQ to be a gathering place for different ideas within the field of transgender studies, and that they embrace multiple definitions of “transgender.”'''

The first call for submissions drew a considerable amount of interest. As such, the first issue, “Postposttranssexual: Key Concepts for a Twenty-First-Century Transgender Studies” was expanded into a book-length double issue comprising 86 essays. The title of the issue comes from Sandy Stone’s 1992 article, “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto,” which has been called the start of transgender studies.    Each essay in this issue focused on “key concepts” within transgender studies.  

'''Each issue of TSQ addresses specific theme, with the exception of the un-themed, open call issue released February 1, 2018. Past issue themes have included surgery, pedagogy, archives, trans/feminisms, and blackness.'''   Only two issues were published in 2016, as they were both double issues. In 2017, only three issues were published, as one was a double issue.

POLITICS (working heading title)

Currah and Stryker embrace a broad definition of “trans” within their journal, as is marked by the asterisk in the journal’s logo. In the introduction to the “Trans-” issue of Women’s Studies Quarterly, Currah and Stryker, along with co-editor Lisa Jean Moore, note that the definition of the word “trans” does not need to be limited to simply experiences of sex and gender, but may include a variety of bodies, identities, and experiences.   Currah has also written that, as all people have their gender policed to some degree, all people may have some understanding of a so-called “transgender” experience.   The breadth of the journal’s definition of “trans” has been explicitly stated, such as within the introduction to the first issue. Additionally, it is visible through such journal themes as “Tranimalities,” which explores the “trans” potential of the human/non-human binary.  

The journal acknowledges the Eurocentric history of the term “transgender” as it is used today, and chooses to respectfully embrace the term as a potential unifier for global gender experiences. The journal’s third issue, “Decolonizing the Transgender Imaginary,” focuses more deeply on this issue.

A major focus of the journal is to embrace the view within transgender studies that transgender people are able to be both subject of knowledge and object of knowledge, meaning they have understanding of their experience as transgender people through simply being transgender, rather than through other methods of authority.